The newest installment of Dragon Ball Z looks great, but lacks what other past games have.
The game introduces the new Gameplay mechanics through it's tutorial mode, which does a fantastic job at explaining all the moves you can do, and leaves the comboing for you to decide. It's a good start for what I will assume will be the first out of a trilogy of games (as Budokai and Tenkaichi both were). You have your typical energy attacks, physical attacks, but then there's slightly complicated, more powerful attacks you can use.
Before each battle, you first choose your characters. Surprisingly, you can only start in your first form. This is a good choice from the developers because it makes online more even, unlike how in Tenkaichi 3 you could choose Super Saiyan 4 Goku while the opponent may choose a small character like Kid Gohan.
Next you choose your finishing move, which determines how many energy bars you have. I see SO much possibility of expansion on this idea. In Tenkaichi 3, there would be multiple versions of 1 character, like 4 different Vegetas from 4 different sagas. I could see the Burst Limit series using this finishing move option as a way of determining which version of the character will be your maximum transformation, which excites me very much when I think of how this system could be utilized...but I digress.
Next you choose any partner that you've unlocked, and up to 3 "drama pieces", which could protect you from energy attacks, a combo, or even heal your health. The game could use more complex moves, as most AI-controlled characters can be defeated by using the same strategy over and over again. But like I said, it's a good start and it's not as rough as the first Budokai game started out as.
Z Chronicals, the main story mode of the game, is like a jumbled mess. You'll go from battle to battle and, unless you've followed the anime, you have no idea why, lets say...Piccolo is fighting himself. Any loyal DBZ fan could tell you that Piccolo has an ability to make copies of himself and that a couple times during the series, he's trained by doing so. But when you enter the 'chapter' where Piccolo fights himself, there's no introduction to the battle at all. Another good example is when Tien fights Nappa. Tien says he'll fight for Chaotzu's sacrifice. What sacrifice would that be? It's never even shown in the game! Obviously it's because Chaotzu self-destructed himself on Nappa as an attempt to kill him and failed, but no normal people would know this. The game does a very poor job of telling any sort of story.
The background music is probably the best out of any game. It's pretty techno-like and exciting sounding, and for once it doesn't give you a headache! It almost seems like you never hear the same track twice. The voice acting is good but it bugs me a lot to see the mouths not synch with the words, which is just laziness from the programmers of the game. You're typical DBZ soundeffects are in the game as well, and they aren't any worse or better than past games.
Where the game definately falls short is character roster. While Tenkaichi 3 covers every Dragon Ball-watcher's dream character, Burst Limit only covers up to the Cell saga. What's surprising, though, is that the game even leaves out characters important to the story! Androids 19 and 20 are nowhere to be found, Zarbon and Dodoria aren't even mentioned in the story, 3 members of the Ginyu Force are missing, and the entire Garlic Jr. saga is skipped over. This is largely disappointing, as it could've expanded the slim roster of 21 to a total of up to 29! Hopefully the roster will be expanded greatly when the next game releases through the Buu Saga (or maybe, JUST MAYBE, some DLC will be thrown our way).
Overall, the game is a nice distraction, and I think only DBZ fans would like this game. It certainly isn't the best game in the series, so hopefully DIMPS will get their act together and polish the game mechanics and expand the character roster to a point where it can rival the Tenkaichi series.